Mini Cherry Pies with Vinegar Pie Crust
I've been using the no-fail pie crust recipe that my friend Ann taught me, for years, however, recently, my blog-friend, Alison, of "Happy Domesticity", who has been searching for a perfect pie crust recipe, seems to have settled on this Vinegar Pie Crust and is using it again and again for her sweet and savoury pies.
This weekend, I thought I'd give the recipe a try for myself.
I have to admit that I had more than one reservation about this pastry recipe as once I had forked in the liquids, I ended up with something that more closely resembled a drop biscuit batter than pastry for a pie crust. I hoped that wrapping up the pastry in saran wrap and refrigerating it would help everything firm up enough to so that I'd be able to roll it out. About an hour later, after I had made some cherry pie filling, I checked my pastry and found that it hadn't improved very much.
Nevertheless, I floured my rolling surface generously and tried to roll the pastry out. It kept sticking to my rolling pin and the rolling surface and when I tried to pick up the pastry circles I had cut out, they fell apart. I ended up gathering everything together and kneading a bit more flour into the pastry in hopes that THAT would help. I refrigerated the pastry again for another 15 min or so and tried again. After filling the aluminum pot pie cases and putting on their lids, I refrigerated everything while preheating my oven to 350 deg F.
I brushed some milk over the crusts and sprinkled some coarse sugar over the top and baked the pies on a baking sheet for 45 minutes to make sure that the bases were lightly golden.
Revised Vinegar Pie Crust - makes 4 single crust or 2 double crust pies
Marjorie Standish Keep Cooking - The Maine Way
4 1/2 cups sifted flour**
1 tbsp sugar
2 tsp salt
1 3/4 cups of vegetable shortening, very cold
1/2 cup cold water
1 tbsp vinegar
1 egg
** The added 1/2 cup of flour in the revised version above should help with the stickiness issue I found in my first trial of this recipe.
In a large mixing bowl, sift together the flour, sugar and salt. Using a pastry blender, cut in the shortening.
In a small bowl combine the cold water, vinegar and egg and mix.
Then add this to the flour mixture and combine.
If you are not going to be using all, divide the dough and wrap well and place in refrigerator or in the freezer.
Flour your rolling surface and rolling pin VERY generously when rolling out.
Bake 35-45 minutes at 350 deg F in preheated oven. I baked at the longer time and the bottom was nicely golden.
Trial 1 - The dough was almost batterlike, very sticky so I had to add at least another 1/4 cup to the scant half of the crust (600 and 500 gm portions) and then it still stuck to the sheet I rolled it out onto and the rolling pin. Amazingly it puffed up and was light and flaky due to all the shortening.
Made 4 double crust pot pies (6 1/4" base and 4" lid) out of half the recipe.
I was able to come up with enough filling for 4 mini cherry pies by combining about 1 1/2 cups of sweet bing cherries in a vanilla sugar syrup from a friend of my mom's and ~ 2 1/2 cups of sour cherries in light syrup. Each mini pie was large enough for 2 people so I think my economical nature did quite well in scavenging odds and ends from the fridge to test out this pie crust recipe, which I WILL use again. The other half of this batch of pastry will be frozen away until I can decide what to do with it. :)
This weekend, I thought I'd give the recipe a try for myself.
I have to admit that I had more than one reservation about this pastry recipe as once I had forked in the liquids, I ended up with something that more closely resembled a drop biscuit batter than pastry for a pie crust. I hoped that wrapping up the pastry in saran wrap and refrigerating it would help everything firm up enough to so that I'd be able to roll it out. About an hour later, after I had made some cherry pie filling, I checked my pastry and found that it hadn't improved very much.
Nevertheless, I floured my rolling surface generously and tried to roll the pastry out. It kept sticking to my rolling pin and the rolling surface and when I tried to pick up the pastry circles I had cut out, they fell apart. I ended up gathering everything together and kneading a bit more flour into the pastry in hopes that THAT would help. I refrigerated the pastry again for another 15 min or so and tried again. After filling the aluminum pot pie cases and putting on their lids, I refrigerated everything while preheating my oven to 350 deg F.
I brushed some milk over the crusts and sprinkled some coarse sugar over the top and baked the pies on a baking sheet for 45 minutes to make sure that the bases were lightly golden.
Revised Vinegar Pie Crust - makes 4 single crust or 2 double crust pies
Marjorie Standish Keep Cooking - The Maine Way
4 1/2 cups sifted flour**
1 tbsp sugar
2 tsp salt
1 3/4 cups of vegetable shortening, very cold
1/2 cup cold water
1 tbsp vinegar
1 egg
** The added 1/2 cup of flour in the revised version above should help with the stickiness issue I found in my first trial of this recipe.
In a large mixing bowl, sift together the flour, sugar and salt. Using a pastry blender, cut in the shortening.
In a small bowl combine the cold water, vinegar and egg and mix.
Then add this to the flour mixture and combine.
If you are not going to be using all, divide the dough and wrap well and place in refrigerator or in the freezer.
Flour your rolling surface and rolling pin VERY generously when rolling out.
Bake 35-45 minutes at 350 deg F in preheated oven. I baked at the longer time and the bottom was nicely golden.
Trial 1 - The dough was almost batterlike, very sticky so I had to add at least another 1/4 cup to the scant half of the crust (600 and 500 gm portions) and then it still stuck to the sheet I rolled it out onto and the rolling pin. Amazingly it puffed up and was light and flaky due to all the shortening.
Made 4 double crust pot pies (6 1/4" base and 4" lid) out of half the recipe.
I was able to come up with enough filling for 4 mini cherry pies by combining about 1 1/2 cups of sweet bing cherries in a vanilla sugar syrup from a friend of my mom's and ~ 2 1/2 cups of sour cherries in light syrup. Each mini pie was large enough for 2 people so I think my economical nature did quite well in scavenging odds and ends from the fridge to test out this pie crust recipe, which I WILL use again. The other half of this batch of pastry will be frozen away until I can decide what to do with it. :)